Austria only? Availability of Ativ S remains a mystery

Georg Pichler

10. Dezember 2012, 16:43

T-Mobile might have pulled off the second world-exclusive launch of a Windows Phone

The Samsung Ativ S Windows Phone could have celebrated its exclusive premier launch in Austria. While there have been news about delays, even until 2013, in other countries, the phone is available at T-Mobile Austria as of today, both online and in stores.

Launch in Austria according to plan

Samsung already confirmed last week, when called by the WebStandard about the ongoing rumors of a delay, that the device will be available by monday. T-Mobile received the first batch of phones on short notice and quickly started distributing them. They will be the only carrier, offering it exclusively "during the upcoming weeks" (addendum: as a contract-bound device). As WPCentral notes, it seems that consumers in other markets, such as Great Britain and the US, still have to wait.

In Austria, you can so far only get the 16 GB variant of the phone. T-Mobile, who already was the first carrier worldwide to introduce the HTC 8X, offers the Ativ S as cheap as 0 Euro, depending on the chosen plan.

They could not confirm the world premiere of the Ativ S immediately, but they promised further feedback soon. The story will be updated once they get back to us. (Georg Pichler, derStandard.at, 10.12.2012)

Update - Dec-10, 6:40 pm: According to a reader of WPCentral, the provider Telia plans to launch the Ativ S in Sweden within the next seven days.

Update - Dec-11, 9:25 am: T-Mobile still can't confirm a world-exclusive market launch of the Ativ S. But they did now confirm that they were at least the first in Europe to bring the phone to market.

Update - Dec-11, 4:20 pm: The Austrian electronics retailer DiTech will have a total 50 Ativ S phones in Stores by tomorrow, selling them for 599 Euros each. They already secured a second, larger batch of the phones. They say it is very likely, that it will arrive before christmas.